What are conversational ads or click to Messenger ads?

People who engage with your ad are opted-in to your Facebook messenger. This means that when someone's opted-in after engaging with the ad, you can retarget them.

Let's create a well-targeted click to Messenger ad campaign!

You will need:

Octane AI

Facebook Ads Manager

Content for your click to Messenger ad

Our campaign will be to send a targeted audience:

A click to Messenger ad offering a free guide

Follow-up Sponsored Message to people who engaged with the ad but not purchased

Let's take a look - here's our click to Messenger ad that will trigger a message to download the free guide.

We'll then send a follow-up message to those who engaged with the ad, but didn't purchase with a discount code automatically applied to their cart. This will send them back to our website and encourage them to purchase.

Steps to creating our campaign

Create Convos to link within both ads

Create click to Messenger ad

Create follow-up sponsored message

Edit audience and targeting within Facebook ads manager

Set click to Messenger ad live

After the click to Messenger ad has ended it's run, set the sponsored message live from Facebook ads manager

I will also link the quick reply to a List. By creating a list, it will compile a list of all the subscribers who downloaded the guide.

Next, I'll save the conversation and choose to not feature it within the bot by pressing no.

Here, I've created a similar convo for our follow up sponsored message. This is what will send after the button in the first message is clicked. To automatically add a discount code to the cart, you can link someone to: yourstore.com/discount/[code]

2. Create click to Messenger ad

In Facebook Ads in the left side menu, select a new click to Messenger ad. Here you can create the content for your ad.

You can edit the first message that will send to the engaged person. Here, you can add a button that links to the convo we just created. Shown here:

You can also link the button to a New List by selecting the two figures and creating a new list. This means that anyone who clicks the button will be added to a list you can target with the sponsored message.

Finish your ad by adding any content, campaign information, etc.

You'll want to select the objective to be conversions, with your Facebook pixel selected and the conversion objective event to be purchasing and ensure that accelerated delivery is on.

Don't worry about targeting or budget, you can finalize this within Facebook ads manager, however you can fill in any information in order to save the ad.

In Lists, in the left side menu, select the list you created and turn on "Create Facebook custom audience" so you can target your sponsored message within Ads manager by facebook custom audience.

3. Create follow-up sponsored message

Within Facebook ads, create a new sponsored message. This is the message that will push to those targeted when the message is set live. Once again, link the message to your convo created by adding a button.

You can again create a list to keep track of those who engaged with the call to action within the sponsored message in case you want to export or re-target them later.

Finish by adding any additional information, and once again don't worry about targeting or budget, you can finalize this within Facebook ads manager, however you can fill in any information in order to save the sponsored message.

4. Edit audience and targeting within Facebook ads manager

How do we target the campaign?We use Facebook custom audiences and event data within Facebook ads manager.

What are Facebook custom audiences?Custom audience is a type of audience you can create made up of existing contacts. You can then include or exclude custom audiences in targeting with Facebook ads manager. You can target ads including or excluding these audiences to Facebook, Instagram, or audience network.

What is event data?Event data are activities that are tracked and sent into Facebook ads manager. You can use these events to create Facebook custom audiences, for example if someone has added to cart in the last 7 days or viewed a product page in the last 30 days.

Go to your created click to Messenger ad at the Ad Set level. Here you can edit the timing and targeting for the ad.

I will be setting my ad to run until a specific date. That way, when I know the run has ended, I will set the sponsored message live as a follow up message.

You can create a custom audience and target your ad under Audience. By selecting create new, custom Facebook audience you can create a new audience to include or exclude in the targeting of this ad.

For my click to Messenger ad, I'm going to create a new audience of people who have added to cart in the last 180 days to exclude them from receiving my ad. I do this by selecting Website Traffic, the Facebook pixel installed on my Shopify store, and selecting the add to cart event.

You can make any additional edits as normal within Facebook ads manager.

I will also create an audience for those that have viewed my page within the last 180 days. This ad will target those who have viewed my page in the last 180 days, but did not add to cart.

Similar to the click to Messenger ad, I will now target my follow-up sponsored message. I will schedule it to end it's run two days after I plan on setting it live.

I will then target the message to those added to the CTM Ad list we created and used to create a custom Facebook audience.

I will then also create a new Facebook custom audience to those who have not added to cart in the past 9 days. This means that the message will send to those who engaged with my click to Messenger ad in the last 9 days, but did not add to cart. If someone added to cart, they would be eligible to receive a cart abandonment flow that I have turned on.

Here's an example of the final targeting for my follow-up sponsored message.

5. Set click to Messenger ad live

6. After the click to Messenger ad has ended it's run, set the sponsored message live from Facebook ads manager